Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P10 (11-11-19)
Synopsis
We are now starting Romans 2. Bob recaps what he talked about last week, that he is not ashamed of the gospel, and neither should we, who are in Christ Jesus. Paul proclaims this gospel in Christ Jesus to the Roman empire with all its pomp and prestige, with its great army and as the leader of the known world. He addressed the sin of homosexuality, and pointed out that unlike other sin, people are taunting it. The root attitude of all sin is the attitude of “I do not need God” and “I will do it my way”. When a society of people decide for themselves right from wrong, with a government that forms such attitudes, they silence and eventually persecute the church, the people of God.
Now, Paul addresses first the Gentile, the most heathen nation on the face of the earth. Then he addresses the Jews. Both the Jew and the Gentile are both born in sin, dead spiritually. The Gentiles, who never had the law, are by nature doing things deserving of death. The Jews, who had the law, are boasting how self righteous they are, and judging the Gentiles for not obeying the law, when they themselves are not obeying the law. Jesus called them hypocrites and Paul is essentially saying the same thing to the Jews. Both are pronounced guilty before God.
Now, it is important to understand scriptures correctly. Upon casual reading, one would think Paul was saying that if you persist in doing good, you will be given eternal life. But keep reading. What Paul is really saying is that no one seeks God’s honor, God’s glory or God’s immortality. Consider what Paul wrote in other passages for greater clarity. Consider what he wrote in the context of Romans 2 more carefully.
So what is he saying this for? It is not those who hear the law who are righteous but those who obey the law who are declared righteous. What is he saying in that? Has anyone ever obeyed the law? Has anyone been declared righteous through obedience to the law? No. So what is he showing you? If you are under law, this is how you are going to be declared righteous under the law. James said it, did he not?
James 2:10
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
That is why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel in Christ Jesus. A righteousness by faith is revealed. What is this faith? It is trust in the person of Christ Jesus in what he came to do and accomplished for you and me. Jesus died to take away the sins of the entire world. So unless a man recognizes his own sinfulness, of what a wretched man he is, he sees no value in what Jesus death on the cross is for. The wages of sin is death, a separation from God both now and forever. Unless the cause of that death is taken away, and replaced with eternal life, man is without hope and without God in this world and cannot be freed from death.
What caused that death? Sin. What is sin? Sin is an attitude of independence and rebellion toward God. All sins, such as homosexual sin and heterosexual sin, lying, stealing, and any other sinful action, in thought or deed, comes from within. The attitude in the human heart, devoid of the Spirit of God, defining for oneself what is right and wrong, good and evil is man’s condition of spiritual death. Now, how has living independent of God worked out for you? What heartaches and pain have you caused in your life, or in the lives of others? What heartache has fornicating with your girlfriend caused? There is pleasure in sin for a moment, but what about the consequences later? A pregnancy with an abortion? Distrust? Feeling used and unloved? Disobeying your parents? Stealing from your neighbor? Lying to your friend?
God also does not grade on a curve. God does not weigh sins on a scale, saying adultery is a 10, stealing is a 9, and lying is a 2. If you sin once, you have been declared guilty of breaking all of the law. For the root of all sin is unbelief in Jesus. It is deciding for yourself what is right and wrong and saying that you do not need God, the one who created you and knows what is best for you, and knows how you were designed to function.
Now, knowing what a wretched man you are, having been tutored under the law, or seeing how messed up you are apart from the law, you realize you are a wretched sinner. You recognize your condition of death. Now, you are ready to listen to God and His offer of new life. Having taken your sins away, and indeed all the sins of the entire world, whether Jew or Gentile, you are already forgiven of all your sins. That was an accomplished fact. That was something God did for you. God did that for you, who are alive today, before you were even born.
What did God do? He sent His only Son, Jesus, born of a virgin, to die on a cross to take away the consequences of sin, which is death. He laid down his life only to raise it up again so as to offer you new life, the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit that left Adam because of sin, and through whom all men born physically are born without the Spirit of God, born spiritually dead to God. Now, come to him to receive life. In that life, is where that forgiveness is received. In Him, you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Not only that you can have the righteousness of God imputed to you; based on His work, not yours, based on his mercy and loving kindness, a gift of love. For when he is raised to new life, he can now offer you the same life that raised him from the dead to you and me. Do you want to receive that new life in Christ Jesus today? You receive it by faith.
In His resurrected life, you receive the Holy Spirit, the ability to discern the things of God, to hear him teach you, to counsel you in living a new life, a life that is dependent on someone who perfectly loves you, a life of faith. It is His loving kindness that leads us to repentance, to turn from trusting ourselves to trusting Him. If he died for you while you were yet a sinner, how much more shall he save you by His life. Do you want love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control? These are the things God produces in you, who are born of the Holy Spirit, walking in faith. You are born again when the Holy Spirit is placed in you the moment you place your complete trust in what Jesus death, burial and resurrection accomplished for you, receiving life in Christ Jesus as a gift. Salvation is life, God’s life living in you and through you.
Transcript
Let us turn to the 2nd chapter of the book of Romans. Paul said in the first chapter that “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ”. He entered into Rome, which would be like entering into Washington, D.C., which is the center of power at that time of the world. The Roman empire controlled the vast majority of the world, as it was known back then. He entered into that world back then, with all of the pomp, power, knowledge attributable to Rome, and he said, “I am not ashamed of this gospel of Jesus Christ”.
Romans 1:16-17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
The apostle Paul was stating that neither was he ashamed, and neither are we ashamed today, of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God for salvation. When you are talking about power, you are not talking about what you think of power. We are not talking about the lions and the tigers and the things we name football teams after. We are talking about the power of the gospel of grace that was ushered in by the man who identified himself as the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.
God came to do something for us that there was no way we would ever accomplish on our own, and that was salvation. God sent Jesus to die for all the sins of mankind to be forgiven in order to be raised from the dead, so that that life that raised him from the dead will raise you from the dead also, that you might have His resurrected life living in you. We were all born dead spiritually, and when you are dead, you need life. Jesus said he came so you may have life and that he is that life. I am not ashamed of this gospel.
John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Last week we talked about a very pertinent subject. It is the subject of homosexuality. Not that that is the only sin of the world. But it appears to be that in some way God called Paul into this teaching to call that particular sin out and to discuss it in detail. How applicable is that to us today? It goes ahead to say that the people who are practicing this type of sexual perversion that they not only do these things but approve of those who practice them. It is one of the few sins I know of where people flaunt it.
I do not see people, as we talked last week, having a parade in Disney Land; an adulterous parade or a thief’s parade or a liar’s parade or a Pedophile parade. I do not see people flaunting their sins. Most people try to hide them, do they not? This is the only sin I know of in existence today where the sinner is flaunting their sin. They are trying to get people to accept the sin. Like I said then, why do not all adulterers try to get everybody to accept that, except their wives?
So you see, is what is strange about this is the flaunting of it, and the pride that the people say, “I have pride over the way in which I like to have sex.” It is unusual and we have bought that in our country. We have bought that acceptance and tolerance. Folks, what we have to understand is that God loves the people practicing homosexuality the same way he loves people practicing adultery or thieves or liars or murderers. He died for all those people. He died for Hitler. He took Hitler’s sins at the cross. How did he do that? I got a better question. How did he do yours? He neutralized the whole world by going to the cross, who by going put to death this thing that caused spiritual death once and for all. He said, “I will deal with it at the cross”. There, where he knew no sin, he became sin for you and for everyone, back to the days of Adam and for everybody forward to eternity. He said, “I will accomplish that by one act on the cross. And when that is completed, I will cry out on the cross, ‘It is finished.’”
John 19:30
30 Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
“The reason I will cry out, ‘It is finished’ is because it is finished.” Christ died for the sins of the whole world, homosexual sin and heterosexual sin. He died for all those sins. It is not the case he does not love you or those who are practicing sin. For in one state or another, we all practice sin. Is there anyone out there who does not sin? I do not see any hands because we all do.
So, we have to understand the truth of this. If any one of us were standing before God in our own righteousness, we would not stand there. Do we understand the truth of that? God does not pick this sin or that sin. All sin is sin. It does not have a numerical value to it, that adultery gets you 10 points, where stealing only gets you 9 and lying, that stuff we do all the time, just gets you 2 or 3 points. God also does not grade on the curve. I used to think he did, that if I did more good than bad, that I will be allowed into heaven. You will be amazed how many people believe that. He merely said the wages, or consequence of sin is death, period, and all of you are dead.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you are dead, there is only one solution to that, and that is life. That is what salvation is, life. In order to get life, you had to be forgiven, but forgiveness is not life. Forgiveness is what cleared the deck for the divine action of bringing life from the dead. Salvation is being saved from the consequences of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life.
Colossians 1:20-23 (TLB)
20 It was through what his Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him – all things in heaven and on earth – for Christ’s death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood. 21 This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies and hated him and were separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. 22 He has done this through the death on the cross of his own human body, and now as a result Christ has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are standing there before him with nothing left against you – nothing left that he could even chide you for; 23 the only condition is that you fully believe the Truth, standing in it steadfast and firm, strong in the Lord, convinced of the Good News that Jesus died for you, and never shifting from trusting him to save you. This is the wonderful news that came to each of you and is now spreading all over the world. And I, Paul, have the joy of telling it to others.
So the issue is how perverted how mind can get. This is the root of all sin. It is suppressing truth. The sinful mind says, “I do not need any more to think about what God said. It does not make any sense that God says the issue is this. It is what I feel about something.” That is the state of morality today. Literally, as what happened in Russia, in order to do that, ultimately you have got to destroy the church. For if your government ever gets to the point of saying, “we determine what is right and wrong”, they will establish laws that will determine what is right and wrong. In order to do that, they have to knock the church out. That is what happened in communist Russia. To name the name of God will put you in prison. That is what happened there and that is what happened here. Whenever government determines what is right and wrong, good and evil, instead of the church, and that that should be the moral actor in this land, you are headed toward anarchy. Nothing is new under the sun.
So the apostle Paul has dealt with that subject of what can happen when your minds get down to the point where you say to God, “God, I do not care whether you made me a man, I like men.” He says that is unnatural relations. As we talked about last week, we said you had to rebel from what was natural. So that shows you you were born natural and you had to rebel against that in order to do unnatural behavior. So there is no one born a homosexual. You are born, if you are a man, to like a woman. And if you are a woman, to like a man. You are born that way. Now that is told out of the bible, not me. That is the bible talking.
So he is basically dealing in the first chapter with the heathen Gentile world, which is what most of us are. So there is nothing more heathen than the Gentiles. We were the worst. Who is the Gentile? Anyone not a Jew. In God’s view, you only have Jews and Gentiles. That is Japanese, Chinese, and Greeks, all of us who are not Jewish. And he dealt with them in this first chapter.
Now he is going, in the second chapter, to begin to talk to the Jews. As he discussed, the Jews were the only people on the face of the earth who were declaring the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus came to identify who that God is; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
John 4:24
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
But the Jews were very judgmental about the acts of the Gentiles. They were very judgmental and very critical about the acts of the Gentiles. When you go into Corinth today, which was probably the most heathen cities on the face of the earth, you will find next what is called the Bema seat, which is where you got your rewards for the race you just ran, and now is uncovered the star of David. They were right in the midst of this heathen city, proclaiming this one true God.
They were very judgmental. If you were looking at the Jewish world back then, you did not have conservative Jews. You only had dogmatic Jews that are absolutely like you see in Israel today, with hats and rings. They are absolutely Orthodox Jews. That is all you had back then, Orthodoxy. You did not have these more liberal part of the Jewish religion. You had Orthodox and that is it. And they became mean as hornets and they became controlling.
So Paul was going to deal with those. Until you see yourself a sinner, you are not prepared for the cross, are you? Until I see that I am wretched as a human being, I am not prepared for the life of Jesus. I am not prepared to exchange my life. So Paul first of all talked to the Gentiles. Here is how you are. Here is how low you can go if you just allow yourself to continue denying God and His teaching. Now he is going to talk to the Jews. You, therefore, you Jews, you religious Jews, who pass judgment on someone else, do you not judge yourselves.
Romans 2:1
1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
The same thing Jesus said, “You hypocrites.”
Matthew 7:3-5
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
You try to take the spec out of your neighbor when you got a log of your own. So before you take out the spec, take out the log. Paul in essence is saying the same thing. You have the law. You have the morality that was given to you by God. You say you are a law keeper but you are not. So who are you to pass judgment on the Gentiles, who do not have the law, acting sinful, when you yourself have the law, and you too are acting sinful? Kind of nails it, doesn’t it?
Romans 2:2
2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.
When God judges, it is based on truth, not on circumstances, but based on truth. When God judges something, He judges according to truth. But you, mere man, pass judgment and do the same things.
Romans 2:3
3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
God, when He judges something, He judges because it is truth. He looks into the heart and judges it. We do not do it that way. We say you are doing something and you have not caught me doing something! Do you think you will escape something because you are hiding something you are doing under the skin?
Romans 2:4
4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness,
Are you absolutely forgetting about His kindness, because all you are bragging about is you and yours? You are bragging about how kind you are. Here is this word, tolerance, a new word. You think you are so tolerant of everybody and He says, “Have you shown contempt for God’s tolerance and kindness and patience?.”
Romans 2:4
4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
Friends, what leads you to repentance? The kindness of God. In Titus, it is the grace of God that teaches us to say no to unrighteousness.
Titus 2:11-13
11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope – the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
It is grace, it is mercy, it is kindness that draws a person to the heart of God. It also draws a person to each other. When you have a person that is kind to you, forgiving of you, tolerant and patient, you are going to be drawn to them. When they are not, you are going to go away from them. It is that simple. When you are going to judge me, it is going to be hard to be your friend.
Romans 2:5
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart,
You are so judgmental about others, but you are not looking at yourself. You are not looking at what is going underneath the skin, where you and I live. All you can see is the errors out there. All you see is what others are doing, what is wrong out there. When you do see what is going out here, you are mad as a hen. You cannot take it. Self-righteous people cannot take criticism. So he says you are stubborn. You have an unrepentant heart. You know what he says.
Romans 2:5
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
God knows what is going on underneath the skin. We can pretend to be so good on the outside but God sees the heart. When he sees the heart, we realize the only solution and hope that I have is in Him, for I sure do not have it in myself. Do you?
Romans 2:6-7
6 God will repay each person according to what they have done.”[Psalm 62:12; Proverbs 24:12] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.
Who seeks God’s glory, God’s honor, and God’s immortality? No one. That is the point.
Romans 2:8-11
8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.
Now folks, these are passages that you can look at and unless you read the whole book, if you stop there, you can say “Oh, it looks like God is judging what we are doing. Those who by persistence, by doing good, seeking honor, glory and immortality, He will give me eternal life.” Do you know what the problem is folks? Who is seeking God’s glory? We are seeking to honor ourselves. That is what he is getting at. We will see, that in a minute, those who are self seeking, reject the truth, and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. Would that lead you to believe God will be judging you on what you are doing? Kind of leads you to believe that doesn’t it?
God does not show favoritism. What is he saying here? I am going to treat the Jew and the Gentile exactly alike. The Gentile does not have the law. The Jew has law. I will treat them exactly alike. No difference at all. How did he treat us all alike? What is the consequence of sin? Death. Who did death come to? All Gentiles and all Jews.
Now look at what he is saying here.
Romans 2:12
12 All who sin apart from the law
Who is that? The Gentiles.
Romans 2:12
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law,
Was a Gentile ever given the law, according to scripture? No. What are we doing with it then? Is that a good question? What are we doing with it then, if we are never given it? Who are the strongest proponents of the law? The Gentiles, aren’t we? We went over and stole up the old beat up clothes of Israel and put them over our new suit and said “I am looking good.” We have to understand, folks, the Gentiles were apart from the law. We never had it. The law was given to the Jews to keep them out of chaos when they left Egypt. When they left the desert, the dietary laws and the laws of the land, better known as the ten commandments, were to keep society out of chaos. The laws were given to the Jews. Now he is saying this.
Romans 2:12
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
Both were under the death sentence.
Romans 2:13
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Now what does that say to you, if you are going to stop there? Where does righteousness come from? Where does it come from, according to this? Obedience to the law. Is that right or wrong? Is that right? But it says it. What is he saying it for? To bury us. Turn to Galatians 2.
Galatians 2:15-16
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
Now turn over to Galatians 2:21.
Galatians 2:21
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Galatians 3:11-12
11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. What was the curse of the law? Death.
Galatians 3:13-14
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
So what is Paul saying over here? No one is going to be justified through the law.
Turn over to Romans 3:20. What I am doing this for is so you can see. Do not stop reading. Do not read something like this and say, “Oh, there it is.” Keep reading so you can get an explanation of why it is there. Here is the reason why it is there. And we are going to point out the reason.
Romans 3:20
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
What is the “therefore” there for. It is a conclusion of the matter.
What was the purpose of the law then? To make you conscious of sin. What was the purpose of making you conscious of sin? To let you know that you are a sinner. Are we all together? Are we all alive? Awake? If I am made conscious of sin, it makes me conscious that I must therefore be a sinner. A sinner is dead. What does a dead person need? Life. That is the purpose of the law, to show me I am a sinner, and the consequence of sin is death, and a dead person needs life. There is only one person who can give life to the dead and that is Jesus. Life is through the resurrection of Jesus. Do you think Buddha can give you life? Do you think Mahammed can give you life? Do you think the pope can give you life? Do you think Martin Luther can bring you to life? No. Only Jesus can bring death to life. That is the “therefore” of this passage to show us that no man will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God by obedience to the law.
Romans 2:13
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
So what is he saying this for? It is not those who hear the law who are righteous but those who obey the law who are declared righteous. What is he saying in that? Has anyone ever obeyed the law? Has anyone been declared righteous through obedience to the law? No. So what is he showing you? If you are under law, this is how you are going to be declared righteous under the law. James said it, did he not?
James 2:10
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
If you kept the whole law and violated at just one point, you violated all of it. What do you say to that? Watch my smoke. You said, “I have had it”. And God says, “now you got it.” When you know you had it, then you got it. Now you are ready for the resurrection. Many times you will find people who want to teach legalism and they will try to teach people from this passage. They will say, “See, it says it right there. You have to obey the law. It says it right there.” I will tell you something. Those who are teaching that are the biggest hypocrites in the world. No one has obeyed the law and no one has obeyed the law except Jesus.
